00:00:01 [Music] moving the needle on founder failure one conversation at a time i'm your host lucas poles and welcome to startup 2.0 by spark xyz join us each week as we give you access to some of the top investors and entrepreneurs around the country to help you think through and overcome some of the top challenges that startups get i think there's no better place in the country to be investing than los angeles what is the problem that you're solving and for who like what is that specific pain point sometimes when a company is not

00:00:31 listening to its customers and just thinks it knows better than it customers has a really really hard time finding product market fit i want to see somebody that that isn't gonna stop you know this person you just feel like they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna make it work [Music] welcome to the show thanks so much for jumping on oh thank you so much for having us super happy to be here so uh again i appreciate you taking your time to jump on startup 2.0 uh i guess the best way to start is to introduce yourselves and

00:01:06 tell us a little bit more about you tania why don't you take it away sure i'm uh tanya mullery and i have many roles in the startup ecosystem here in los angeles um first of all i teach at usc a ui ux class since 2013 which has been super fun to really see students and how that's been evolving and now i'm starting a venture firm called steamwork ventures which is super exciting to be crossing over into that land but way back when i was a founder myself and and have been doing consulting for startups for basically the last 12 years

00:01:46 as well as mentoring in the community through several programs like tech stars anywhere actually social venture partners los angeles because i love my non-profits as well that was that was a really fun gig for a while and now founder's been still lay awesome i appreciate arvin hey my name is orphan murphy uh academically my background's actually in urban planning um intelligent transportation smarter cities um i would say almost a decade ago i decided to make that jump while sitting in a city new york i'm

00:02:21 just thinking about traffic patterns and global real estate i was actually sitting with a cup of coffee um and it kind of hit me you know what i should start an artisanal coffee company i came back to southern california and i launched a my first startup called bear state coffee uh back in 2013. um it was my first uh foray into direct-to-consumer e-commerce um from that launch i i got the the full gamut of what the startup and la ecosystems were all about um and the one thing that really stuck with me throughout all of my adventures

00:02:57 throughout everything i've done since the big since 2012 is if you pay it forward if you help other people it'll really come back in spades i had so many super qualified amazing individuals just go out of their way to really help me and it kind of baffled me at first i was like you know i'm just i'm a nobody started trying to hawk coffee beans online uh why are you helping me why what's the catch here are you gonna send me an invoice for all your help and mentorship and you know connecting me to

00:03:28 all these people on tendail road um you know what's the catch like you know when is ashton kutcher going to jump out with this camera crew and punk me and it never happened um and since then i've been basically swinging from you know a big project to big project um i have just like tanya a set of complementary skills that's kind of lend themselves to helping others out mentoring um her and i came together at the beginning of 2020 she was the well she is the co-director of startup boost here in la i was a

00:04:00 mentor and earlier um in 2021 this year uh tanya wrote me wrote me into the crew and now we're here together yeah that's awesome and that's something that's very true it's cool i don't know if it's true in other ecosystems outside of like l.a like i'm not sure it's probably the same in valley but uh everyone uh definitely tries to help each other because of how uh the entrepreneurship kind of road is so yeah yeah that's that's really interesting let's get off track that when i first moved out here in 2007 also from new york

00:04:35 um there were very very few vc funded startups here maybe i don't know three and i worked for one of them which was a very strange experience in l.a and the the vibe was completely you need to move to the bay in order to build a company 100 like very very few people attempted it at that time no time i think your your timing was a little bit too early i was just at that sweet spot where you had this like very naive optimism you know um i would say right when that term sola can beat started to be penned and really overused i would

00:05:12 say um 2011 to 2015. everybody was really nice um everybody was super open and now we're a mature cis ecosystem right it took silicon valley 30 years to get there in la we've done that in the course of a decade you were on the very early end of things i was luckily in the sweet spot that being said i i i would argue i squandered it and now we're at this place of maturity right and we're looking at it not as these nation entrepreneurs um but mentors right people in the ecosystem who are the luxury of being

00:05:45 maybe not 30 000 feet up but we're we're you know we're at cruising altitude yeah right so we can see uh the veterans the startup veterans and we also get almost daily exposure to um young entrepreneurs and by young i don't mean age i mean and just the uh the length and breadth of them being in the startup world it's funny it's funny that you mentioned silicon beach because i'm from santa monica originally and so the first time someone used that term what are you even talking about yeah it was definitely

00:06:16 [Music] it was definitely an eye roller and then everything in every other community because i live just north of la and every community wants to rebrand themselves silicon something and my community because we're in the mountains they wanted to be called silicon canyons and i'm like i think we we either we either get give it to tanya's folks or we uh we uh start a incubator accelerator um down the street from the grand canyon and that way it's undisputed uh it's i would participate in something

00:06:53 like that if you could if you got that view oh gosh awesome so lucas if if you don't mind me uh sort of kind of sort of derailing things here you mentioned here from santa monica what's the you know every decade every seven year period people say you know cities and built-up areas experiences like chapter change right things change things shift things progress um in your life what's been the decade or that period of the most change in this santa monica west l.a area that most tech people are in

00:07:34 uh probably the the probably 2005 to 2015 um because like even so venice right now right this is a hot spot venice used to you could get rent for like 800 a month mar vista was not even a thing culver city was far away like it's uh it has changed drastically i mean even santa monica itself like it wasn't it wasn't the way it is now yeah i mean i still remember when the mall was the mall and indoor and no one really went to the promenade because we all wanted to go into the mall and hang out in the air

00:08:14 so i mean the landscape has definitely shifted uh drastically uh uh over the years and i think that that that final book end to that 2015 chapter is when these uh scooter services started doing their you know first drop-offs 2015-2016 that's like you know all right this chapter is closed we're starting a new one yeah yeah no it's true it's true they don't seem very you don't see them as much right now uh because of kobe which is interesting um awesome well so uh great to get backgrounds on both of you um i guess

00:08:53 let's dive into uh into founders uh uh tell me more about it what you guys are looking for a little overview uh all the above sure so founders boost la is part of a network a global network of now 14 different cities it's a pre-accelerator program so that means we help start founders pretty early they may have had some friends and family not everyone has you know the check cuttable friends and family um and so sometimes startup founders don't even understand what that term term means um so we think of ourselves as really

00:09:33 educators and sort of network builders for startups with potential to really scale that just need to really understand what they're getting into right it's very very um common for people to have come out of a really great career somewhere and say you know what it sounds really cool to start a business right and i think i could do that startup thing that i've seen on hbo where i'm like i've been reading mashable or whatever and i think oh i can totally do that and that was my case too when i moved out

00:10:06 from new york i was at mastercard for 10 years building mobile products and getting in the world ready for mobile commerce before the world knew it needed contactless payments um and you know i thought look i've had this incredible success how can how can this be hard right let's go do it so i started at a startup it was very bad timing at that startup um little did i know that vcs could pull the plug right before the recession after moving my whole family out here that's a longer story and i went you know went down the road

00:10:44 on my own and you have to know to ask for help right you have to know like arvin did this intuitively and he's got an incredible uh personality and probing mind and he went asking people for help but if you don't even know where those people are or you know who who's in a position to help you who've been there before where do they hang out like who who has this experience that you want to benefit from you know when i started out this wasn't a thing but with startup startup boost and now founders boost we just renamed

00:11:18 ourselves we actually have that kind of a program where our mentors are people who have been and you know founders or growth or tech you know tech resources senior um or and we have several angels as well as vcs involved as mentors and so incorporate corporates amazing like corporate innovation mentors so we really surround these founders with just the incredible voices and incredible experience that you know we're there just to lift them up and help them understand all these confusing terms should i raise

00:11:57 what is a lifestyle business versus a vc fundable business all these things that were that normal people don't say [Laughter] like you don't know these terms until you walk into a meeting yeah and somebody says that you're like what you know so we help them not be surprised i would say by the process i think that's one of the most succinct summaries of i've ever heard um now at the end of the day we're we're starting school and finishing school for that entrepreneurial like lingo and jargon right uh we use these terms not to sound

00:12:35 you know snobby and elitist but uh you know if you want to talk about you know certain value you know um valuation caps prior to series a and this and that and tam sam some and you know all these random vowels and consonants here it's intimidating right if you have a person who just has a good idea hey you know i'm very frustrated with finding an auto mechanic i want to create the ng's list of finding an indie car shop right i've googled how to create an app and spent some time doing it you know that's

00:13:09 that's where the work and effort should be put it shouldn't be put into becoming a you know basically a a youtube venture capitalist where you have to learn all this lingo um that's where we come in it's basically just guiding you really quick giving you just enough to be dangerous but also just enough to really protect yourself right because once you do have something once you are ready for the accelerators or the angels who actually can write the larger checks right they are they expect a certain

00:13:40 like uh intuitiveness we want to make sure that you have that intuitiveness right you're not giving away your entire company for a song right that's that's our biggest fear we want to equip you to advocate for yourself and follow through with whatever you start yeah yeah and a couple couple more things we are no female equity which means we're sponsorship driven and that also it reduces the risk for entrepreneurs to say yes to a program like this we run two cohorts a year in the spring and the fall and accept about eight

00:14:14 companies per cohort so that means we're turning out 16 high quality investable ready um you know with great pitches i mean our demo day is legendary you have to check it out if you haven't had a chance and um these companies are doing quite well i mean last springs uh cohort i just have to brag a little we had out of the eight three tech stars uh let's see oh yeah an acquisition within a year unbelievable and you know you know several funding you know events as well just for those eight companies so

00:14:53 it's pretty it's pretty remarkable what can happen when you pick companies that um you know just really need a little bit of guidance what i'm looking for i mean you asked about selection and and arvind and i debate this a lot right how do you find that diamond in the rough and for me it comes down to a brilliant idea right that it's technically feasible they figured that out but they're explaining it really badly because i know we can help with that right i know that if we put 40 mentors you know giving them non-stop feedback

00:15:31 for six weeks that thing is going to shine like a diamond right and um you know and and there are going to be blind spots right every entrepreneur has blind spots you don't you don't like go to kindergarten saying oh you know what i want to be when i grow up is is an amazing tech founder that doesn't happen and so you know we we just wanted them to be confident in all the different areas understand a little bit about all the areas but they don't have to master everything at this stage yeah no um honestly from uh from our

00:16:06 perspective of the angels and vcs we greatly appreciate it a couple things that you guys touched on like network to me is a very big driving factor especially because it early stage investment a lot of time it's fortunately unfortunately still who you know and so being able to help broaden that um i think it's a really big deal and then mentorship and so you some people might not know how to ask for help but some people might ask for help with the wrong people who might not know necessarily the ecosystem and so

00:16:44 having more qualified mentors who work in the ecosystem uh i think is very very valuable uh from that perspective because you might get you you will still probably get different answers depending on who you're talking to but the right answer will be in there versus so if you talk to someone outside of our space they have no idea what we do or kind of what's involved in the actual ecosystem so it's definitely something that i find very valuable and vice versa too right there will be plenty of mentors that

00:17:18 know how to deliver the right information and advice to entrepreneurs and startups and may totally falter with other entrepreneurs and startups this past cohort and i'm very and i'm all i say there's a lot of pride i know tommy and i both do but uh this past cohort was our first one where we had a equal balance between male and female founded companies um most of our mentors i would say was around 75 male 25 female and that's usually matched our makeup of our uh cohorts uh this time around it didn't and we wanted to really have that

00:17:56 balance we wanted to find um mentors with that background who could really speak to um the you know the the unique attributes to you know picking up two kids from school as a mom and making sure uh kids are taken care of and then you get to work on your deck right and just having having the right people to really deliver that message is also really important it's not only the message itself it's how it's delivered right so we're constantly looking for those right people because that message is also changing

00:18:30 right we're noticing this with the with the younger demographics with the uh with the with the zoomers right um our interactions with them are different um it's there's a different energy there's a different type of uh way they approach problems so we want to make sure our mentor class is also getting younger and younger and younger um it's dynamic it's it's really exciting to watch things ebb and flow yeah yeah no that that is it's uh it's definitely interesting to uh to continue to uh especially watch the

00:19:01 ecosystem go um awesome so let's i guess switch gears a little bit let's jump into uh maybe some of the challenges that you see the companies face in the cohorts and maybe the ones that don't make it into the cohorts what are some of the problems that you end up seeing i guess yeah and applications and then some challenges as they kind of run through the actual cohort i think we've seen everything to a lot of everything tanya are there any you know uh without without naming names or are there any

00:19:30 speci maybe each of us can give like a little case which might help and shed light on you know those certain problems i would say we're super fortunate because in la we get hundreds of applications and most of them are extremely great right there's you know not getting accepted into a program like this does not mean that your your startup isn't worthy of support um so first that's the first thing uh i would say that where where people struggle is maybe it's um you know very you know more common idea

00:20:09 right it's not differentiated and so really coming up with a strong idea that's different than how it's being done in other places is is probably the number one thing if we've seen the same thing over and over again we might be less likely to take it what do you think arvin what i've noticed and what's really stuck out to me is especially after the cohort right it's uh if if we work with the company in march 2020 those calls typically come to us a year later a couple months down the line right um and i've noticed you know i get

00:20:48 everything right so i'll have company saying hey i have three offers in front of me how do i evaluate which one is the best or we're being acquired by a public publicly listed companies should we go for all cash all stock or a hybrid right like those are real problems but they're problems associated with success right and then i'll also have companies basically saying i got 18 in my silicon valley bank checking account we have you know everything is dried up we were a travel related company and with the

00:21:19 lockdowns were in trouble right what do i do um and that's a and i don't want to use the f word but that's a failure related problem right and you have a there's a pretty clear path there you know you've you've done your best there are you know it's basically a force measure you walk away with your head head your your head held up high and you figure out the next best thing the problems that i have difficulty with as an entrepreneur as a mentor as a friend as a collaborator are those problems right middle it's not about

00:21:51 success or failure it's about just the very nature of being a startup right everything from just disputes between co-founders right literally uh co-founders going at each other's necks um legal action um to understanding how we should pivot right um are we really delivering value here are we charging too much money right it's those small mundane issues that are actually bigger problems for me because as a as an advisor and a mentor i can't tell you what to do the only thing i could really do is help you shape up your

00:22:25 intuition and it's literally just asking questions of yourself how would you feel if you were buying that service would you feel like you're you know if you were paying 85 per month for that are you at least getting 90 you know 86 dollars 90 bucks out of it right like you know it's that the the the boring stuff is really the hardest stuff yeah yeah i agree and so you you touched on co-founder challenges so so what are some of the typical team challenges that you see founders kind of run into and maybe

00:23:01 let's give an example maybe one that you run into and then maybe one how they ended up solving it uh going forward if you have any uh uh top of head so i'll i'll take that then i think there's probably a connectivity issue but uh the top of the head one for me is uh a case where there wasn't issues right it was basically what the best practices were um it was two founders uh one was the ceo yeah one was the the vp of outreach and business development but the public face of the company was not the ceo

00:23:35 it was that vp right it was that person who was always talking always interacting always getting to know people right typically the ceo is a pro there's some there's always some aspect of ego involved right but they had such well-defined roles they knew their lanes and for a lot of teams uh what they try to do is you know let's be nice let's all overlap right that's never a good idea any usually when i see a lot of overlapping i can anticipate issues the teams and this is just from my observation the

00:24:07 teams have done really well and you don't have those founder issues are ones where the roles are clearly defined sure there could be some redundancies right you know sometimes somebody's internet goes out and you need to cover for them or you know so you need to go to an event or talk to a vc sure but the teams that have those very clearly defined roles where you know who to talk to where you know who's going to give you the answer right those are the teams that avoid those issues altogether the teams where you want to be nice and

00:24:38 lovey-dovey and say oh we're all family oh it's super flat we have no issues i've noticed this is just me i've noticed those are the ones where there might be a potential for issues later on down the line so uh it's interesting to give that scenario so 100 agree with roles and being able to kind of develop the hierarchy uh within the actual organization because i think it's something that they don't do really enough um for a lot of the uh a lot of the startups they see but for that specific scenario like the vp

00:25:12 of product is going out and doing all the talking and meeting with everyone i think i feel like i've always felt it like strange if the vp of product is coming to pitch to uh investors because my first thought is like where's the ceo why is this person not the actual ceo and is that is there going to be conflict with that later on because the person that's out here selling uh is not the one that's uh that's supposed to be out here selling right now the ceo needs to come prepared to pitch that's my my view and it can be a signal

00:25:47 of something wrong if that isn't the person who's doing the first say isn't fundraising first of all because you need to be the one fundraising and the second one is they need to be out selling because they need to understand the customer problems so deeply so they should be out there you know doing the first 10 100 000 sales i really like that from you from a ui perspective too because it's it's it's really diving in deep into your own product and finding because if you're not interacting with

00:26:19 customers the way that the person that is selling is you're right you you you don't understand the product at all because you might have an idea of what's actually happening but until you actually watch people play with it and find what their hot partners are and kind of run through you're like oh my god i didn't think about this like that wasn't in my in my uh my spectrum like oh okay i need to shift a little bit more up here because i'm hearing the exact same thing from customers continuously um

00:26:49 so i think it's just a very very good point that so imagine imagine a ceo now who hasn't sold right who wants somebody else to do that so in terms of product development and the empathetic you know iteration of that product they're totally disconnected so their their vision goes one direction and the person responsible for the product or even just running their organization is a totally different direction and that's where you have the issues right um we've met plenty of at the stage where we're interacting

00:27:21 with companies everybody is an absolute pleasure to work with and you know i've said many times oh there's no way those two founders would ever be at each other's throat and then i'll i'll get the news from tanya yeah um you know uh lawsuits are being thrown around left and right and you i'm just floored i'm like how how is it possible they're so they're they're just great people to be around uh intrepid entrepreneurs and then you you kind of autopsy it you're like huh okay yeah i i didn't know who did what

00:27:53 that makes perfect sense now they've basically had that you know had the concept and then diverged and i can understand why they're at each other's throat each one feels ownership over the product and company more than the other one you know that's that's where the issues kind of arise from yeah i don't think that especially at the beginning like the the small little cracks that kind of that form in the relationships i mean they will absolutely burst open when you're under because entrepreneurs are under

00:28:24 such intense pressure and stress constantly and so those those cracks turn into canyons very quickly when you haven't slept in a week or just uh everything is falling apart and you're trying to put it back together like while falling off cliff like it's madness and so it's it's very good points that a lot of times you have to take that you have to take that time in the beginning and make sure that those uh those rules are absolutely defined and the structure is kind of put in place so that when those things do happen

00:28:57 you're in a lot better spots people handle them yeah and it's it's not only defining the rules but also respecting the roles right so if you are the ceo if you are the majority shareholder of the startup right it's incumbent on you to basically step up as a leader as well and acknowledge those who you're working with who might not have as big of a share as you you do right uh pay for their cup of coffee every once in a while i know everybody's cash strapped but these small things really help right and sometimes we're so

00:29:25 busy and we're so stressed like you mentioned being an entrepreneur we forget to be human sometimes right so and that's one thing i love about our program and our format it's it's a six week program right so it's not super intensive it's six weeks every tuesday night from 69 pm right so it's three it's a three hour love fest it's that's what i call it um three hours of fun right and it's a place where there's no pressure it's a venue where usually around week two or three you realize i could be a human being here

00:29:57 right i can be with other people who know my pain and pressure and i really don't need to put a show on for the mentors they really want to see who i am and what my real issues are and the more i get real with them the more positive results i have so it's self-reinforcing and by the time we're at week seven which is like our unofficial week of practicing for the pitches it is night and day going from what tanya and i and our team interview two months before just prior to demo day we always i have to pinch myself to realize this

00:30:31 is real right we've gone this far and it's it's not us we're facilitators right we are not the people doing their decks we are not the people telling them what to say we just facilitate it you know we turn on our cameras and mics hey we're not we're not doing the work um but to see that journey is absolutely amazing um and i think the one thing that the magic that tanya myself and uh our la team have is just being human and reminding entrepreneurs hey you're under a lot of pressure you know we know you want to raise money

00:31:07 it ain't easy right uh no promises um you have a network just be yourself you know um take some right it's basically like a uh like a thrift store you come you take some stuff you want right if you see a good deal on air jordan's in the back grab them they're yours but bring some stuff too right bring that old bread maker put it in the corner somebody else might want it so you give some but you also get some yeah one of our questions um when we interview our companies we'll have you know uh maybe a dozen or two dozen

00:31:38 companies that we'll do our final interviews with um and one thing we'll ask them is as we put this cohort together a core of you know six to eight companies it's holistic we want to know how you fit in what you are keen on learning and taking away with you but what skills you know what can you share back with the group right if you're one of eight what can what mark can you make on everybody else right and that's actually the most telling question you know and for all the uh prospect companies watching this

00:32:11 right that's the one to practice for right that's one we really care about because your application does a pretty good job at telling us what you want to do your video really helps us out but the one aspect that really gives us insight and knowledge as to do we want uh this team and this company in our cohort is what could you actually what can we learn from you right um and that that's that's the that's the crux of what uh really informs our decision making it's you know how they all fit together so how do

00:32:43 we have these eight contributors right how do they what do they take from each other and what can they give to give to one another yeah it's always a hard decision though always a hard decision to whittle it down and lots of uh like trading and voting and debating and so um everybody deserves a shot and i do hope that even if somebody gets a no from us that they realize that they're part of something bigger and that there there's a shot for them somewhere um so many of the companies that we've said

00:33:20 no to have gone on to great things as well so we just want we want everybody to keep trying but definitely apply and our applications are open so uh we hope to see some really cool companies in the fall definitely so what what are some of the what is some of the areas that you're excited about maybe right now industries and sectors yeah industries industry sectors oh gosh well i'm i'm just a fintech lady from way back when um so i'm always excited to see those kinds of companies and the whole gamut you know

00:33:57 how do we pay how do we keep track of how we paid how do we um improve in all manners of the way that we exchange funds um i love healthtech too i mean i love a device and data play i love that subscription revenue from any company that can really master some kind of a recurring revenue because it's just magical it's a magical income statement happens when you have recurring revenue um let's see i mean what and i love climate tech there's so much to do there this is such a deep well and with the infrastructure bill

00:34:34 coming through i think there's going to be some really amazing breakthrough opportunities there how about you arvind i'm i'm always interested in companies and entrepreneurs that [Music] revisit and rethink uh our the nature of work life and play right um without name dropping too much to protect protect the interstate we had a company that i'm just beyond impressed with um that radically changes legal arbitration um especially in the financial services sector and that was one of the companies i am the most

00:35:12 bullish on um just because it's taking something so boring arbitration you know for any type of if you sign your credit card your site with mastercard you're selling an arbitration agreement with you if you decide to use their card right something as simple as that um but that's still a long and massive process right so imagine that imagine everything that tanya said right where you can capture an industry where there's a very lucrative recurring you know revenue stream and you're streamlining so many things you're

00:35:43 making it super valuable for every stakeholder involved so those are the companies that i like right and arbitration is boring home renovations are also boring right but when we see those companies we're like wow you're rethinking you're you're you're putting that kaleidoscope entrepreneur vision on and you're rethinking that entire process right um and companies i don't like right because you ask what we like i don't like companies that are not honest and i don't mean dishonest entrepreneurs because for the most part

00:36:15 people are good people uh if you tell me that you have a weight loss beer that's that's not really now i've seen it all yeah like it's stuff and stuff like that that kind of crosses me because it also doesn't fit within with the other companies right we're if tony and i have the task of assembling eight legos right and they all have to fit perfectly you can't have one just sticking out or one that just doesn't fit in they all need to fit in perfectly together right we have no agenda we have no quota as to

00:36:47 what companies what sectors the makeup of the teams right we look through all of our applications we give everyone a fair shot right so even if we see one where the graphics aren't as pretty or whatever we still look at every word we look at every chart and graph we read every answer right we don't we know and we acknowledge that you are being like these are people in the very early stages of starting their companies right uh they need all the support and encouragement as possible right um it it's not a good look for us to say this

00:37:21 is bad this is bad let's not do it right and that's not the spirit of what tony and i do and the program that we've really worked hard to foster and create it's more of all right um what support can we give this person how can we do them justice how would they fall in with the other seven companies what can they learn oh you know what we're feeling really good uh almost 10 out of 10 on this company that's going to be a really good interaction right so it's it's really coming up with those commute uh

00:37:53 combinations and permutations um of what that cohort looks like amongst the uh amongst the applicant pool and it's it's harrowing but it's also a lot of fun yeah one more thing we think about is can we find the right mentors for this company um because if it's super specialized then we have to go outside our mentor pool and really find some people that can truly support them um and so it's you know it's a little bit on instinct because we've known our mentors for now several years and we we know who will show up and who gets

00:38:25 excited about what kind of company and so um you know it's a mini ecosystem that we're trying to really balance all of the different elements so it's it's fascinating to make that selection now i'm just dreaming what are we going to find in this cohort like what's waiting for us inside our spark application i think that's my favorite thing is when you go through and get to see what everyone's kind of working on it the exciting takes on different problems the different angles that people are coming

00:38:58 at maybe even the same problem it's like oh wow radically different from a to b but both have the potential to work it's a it's very interesting uh definitely an interesting time yeah some somebody asked me when you go through your applications is it like panning for gold i was like no apps well now i would argue no because you're planning for gold right statistically most of the stuff you look at is not going to be gold right at least when i look at these almost everything has the potential to

00:39:31 be gold right it's just finding those flecks and specks that work together right so you have seven you have eight pieces of gold that just fit together nicely that is the cohort um every every company has that you know has their opportunity in time and space to be exactly what they need to be sometimes the timing doesn't work out sometimes the mentors don't work out sometimes the other companies it just doesn't work out maybe we interview you and you have a bad interview day and you know you totally freeze up when we ask you what

00:40:05 can you offer the program life happens you know that's the that's the real motto of startups with our mentors and companies and even amongst ourselves today and i life happens right um sometimes our internet is a little bit slow sometimes our hair is a little bit too long you know sometimes we have family just saying hey where's dinner i can't find it in the fridge while we're on a video call right we get that there is no hoity-toitiness here and for all of our entrepreneurs at the end of the day you're here to

00:40:34 create something right you're here to do something cool and you're opening yourself up and you're exposing yourself the one thing that we owe you is that positivity right um like i would have never told somebody they had a bad idea i would always if and if they do right i will spend and i have spent hours on additional calls with those entrepreneurs just to help them just to get them at a good place right that's that's the entire spirit of what we do is just building people up never really breaking them down yeah no

00:41:10 that's great um as we wrap up uh what what what final thoughts maybe do you have uh for uh people applying for the program show us who you really are and not who you think we want you to be exactly tanya i absolutely i absolutely love that tamiya i'm going to be going for i'll be stealing that from you so if you hear that again it's wholesale played plagiarism and spectrum cooperated [Laughter] well if they didn't know i would just ripped your audio and said it myself i like that i would the message i would

00:41:50 give to any applicants or applicants and mentors we've had we've had people apply who are literally still in their dorm rooms in college who don't know that much about the business world um and are in our country and they've done great i'm all beyond great like fantastically i mean we've literally seen people's like roommates sleeping in the background yeah and we also we've also had a lot of you know people who are moms of teenage daughters and teenage sons um people who've put in their 25 years in business people are former

00:42:31 former you know not former active angels and investors big shots right so it really doesn't matter who you are right in the sense of been there done that or i'm so i'm so green and new come as like tanya said come as you are right in the words of uh nirvana come as you are um show us one thing show us who you really are and also tell us who you want to be right we understand that those may be two very different things uh open up to us give share share with us what your plans are for your journey

00:43:04 and if you don't know that's totally okay as well like we say life happens and we'll share with you too so it's not a two-way street you better be prepared to listen to uh you know what what tanya and i have cooking up as well i want to encourage anybody who's thinking well okay somebody else is going to get into that program because i'm xyz whatever their self-perception is right whatever background they think they're from that is ineligible all of that is not true um 80 to 100 of our founders have some an

00:43:36 underrepresented founder on their founding team doesn't necessarily need to be the ceo and we're not selecting for that specifically it's just how it happens and so we love that we absolutely want to find founders and support founders who may not have had access to all the resources that have been easier for other people to find so don't count yourself out just because you think whatever those nasty awful thoughts are in your mind about how you you don't belong to this group but you do so definitely

00:44:11 keep applying keep moving forward we want to see all those cool applications we want to know what you're working on awesome well i appreciate you both taking the time out of your busy schedules to to jump on and look forward to chatting again in the future thank you so much [Music]